Athletic 'arms race' in youth sports

Associated Press

Published 6:37 pm, Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Photo: Ed Andrieski

Image 1of/1

Caption

Close

Image 1 of 1

ADVANCE FOR THURSDAY, NOV. 22, AND THEREAFTER - In this Oct. 22, 2012 photo, Shawn Worthy and his 16-year-old daughter, Soleil, walk the fairway at a golf course near their home in Aurora, Colo. Worthy, a professor at Metropolitan State University of Denver with an interest in sports psychology, questions the extreme emphasis that parents put on youth in sports. (AP Photo/Ed Andrieski) less

ADVANCE FOR THURSDAY, NOV. 22, AND THEREAFTER - In this Oct. 22, 2012 photo, Shawn Worthy and his 16-year-old daughter, Soleil, walk the fairway at a golf course near their home in Aurora, Colo. Worthy, a ... more

Yet even he was floored when a couple of moms he met at a pro junior golf tournament told him that their teen daughters would be entered in 30 such events this past summer.

"Why are these young ladies out on the golf course playing competitively four or five days a week?" Worthy asked himself.

His own 16-year-old daughter, Soleil, holds down a job while participating in a few tournaments each summer. She and the other young women are good, Worthy says, maybe talented enough to play in college.

But 30 tournaments?

"If you're a future Olympian, I get it. But for these kids who will never reach that level, that's what I don't get," says Worthy, a professor at Metropolitan State University of Denver with an interest in sports psychology.

"What does it say about our culture that we go to this extreme?" he asks. "And that we push our kids to this extreme?"

It's not just golf. Many parents, coaches and researchers see a steady upping of the ante in youth sports, with kids whose families can afford the time and cost involved playing more, practicing more and specializing in one sport at younger ages.

Parents are driven by a desire to help their children stand out and the fear that, if they don't, their kids will be left behind. To keep pace, they're often traveling hundreds if not thousands of miles a year for games and tournaments. Some parents send their children to personal trainers, or to the growing number of "elite" training facilities.

Often, the goal is to simply land a spot on the local high school team, an accomplishment once taken for granted. Or, a young person may try to get on the roster in the growing private club team system — an even more exclusive route that some top teenage athletes are choosing, especially when high schools cut coaches and opportunities. "It's an athletic arms race," says Scott VanderStoep, a psychology professor at Hope College in Holland, Mich., who studies youth sports. And it starts early. "It sort of spreads throughout the community and then it reduces down in age," VanderStoep says. "If it's OK for 14-year-olds, then it's OK for a 12-year-old, or a 10-year-old."

Some schools in cash-strapped districts have cut back on sports and physical education. And even in some wealthier districts, high school populations have grown, leaving more kids to vie for fewer spots on teams. These dwindling opportunities have only fed the hyper-competitive atmosphere, says VanderStoep, who admits that, as a dad of two daughters who play volleyball, even he feels beholden to the system.

For his daughters, that has meant weight-lifting camps and tournaments, required practices and schedules packed with games that could be any night of the week — and have made it more difficult for his youngest daughter to find the time to play other sports. "You feel obligated to do it. You want to give your kids the opportunity," he says. "And if they don't show up, they lose opportunities to play."

Corinne Henson, a mom in suburban Chicago, knows about those hard choices. Her sons, 11-year-old Tyler and 14-year-old Dylan, play year-round baseball on different traveling teams and also manage to squeeze in basketball and football for their local park district.

But there are sacrifices, especially for their parents. Time spent on sports has meant giving up their longtime campsite in Indiana where they'd kept a travel trailer. They simply have no time to go there. "Our vacations are baseball trips," Henson says.

The toughest compromise came in July when their town, Oak Forest, Ill., had a fundraiser for Dylan's best friend, who was seriously injured when he was hit by a hit-and-run driver. Dylan, a catcher who is captain of his traveling baseball team, had four tournament games that day. He decided he had to be at the tournament, and showed up at the fundraiser as it was wrapping up.

His friend understood. "I would have done the same thing," he told Dylan.